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Building a Killer Rig, budget $2000-2500, what do you suggest?

M

Marty

Banned
This is going to be built within the next month, so barring any further delays, we can assume that AMD DDR solutions will be available. However, I am open to other suggestions, so fire away. The computer is mostly going to be used for 2D-workstation type stuff, but should have good 3D capability as well. CD-RW is a must, and I was thinking of going all SCSI. Ideas?

Marty
 
Do not go all SCSI. It just raises upgrade costs in the future and it costs an arm and a leg to begin with.

Here is what i would do if i was to buy a new system soon.

Voodoo5 5500 or GTS Pro for video, maybe Radeon 64mb DDR retail...
256mb of DDR memory
Nvidia CRUSH based motherboard, for dual channel DDR.
900mhz-1ghz Thunderbird.
12x Plextor burner.
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card
Antec 303x Power supply (best PS ive ever had)
Run a nice heatsink with a smaller fan to keep your computer quiet.

If you want nice harddrive speed, Raid 0 two 7200RPM drives.

Go from there 🙂
 
Is the Crush anywhere near being available within the next month? I was focusing more on the 760 chipset. I have SCSI in my rig right now, so I'm biased, but I'll take it under advisement.

Marty
 
With that much money, consider the 1.2G Tbird, your DDR motherboard of choice (I would stay clear of the CRUSH chipset for a while. This is a new area for them and let someone else go though their growing pains for nVidia and not you. This is where a company's experience will come into play. I'm not saying don't get one but I would wait at least 2 months until the bugs are worked out.) The Radeon would be a nice choice wince you are doing mostly 2D stuff. SCSI for the harddrives is fine but I'd consider an IDE burner with burnproof. But again that's a personal suggestion. If you need the fast harddrives consider SCSI Raid over IDE Raid. But a good, well choosen SCSI system should easily compete with the IDE Raid setup. And I too am partial to Antec for cases.
 
I would personally stay away from DDR.. for the first round of chipsets anyway...

Don't go ALL scsi.. scsi HD's are wayyy to expensive... but everything else scsi is a nice way to go.. if you plan on having lotsa extra stuff like zip, scanner, dvd/cd, etc... if not, don't bother. I had an old HP scanner, zip, cd, dvd, cdr, backup HD at one time (since then dropped to cdr/dvd). its nice to not have everything on the ide chain.. not too mention i had two HD's in there. just my 2 cents.

Dunno about the santaCruz... drivers just don't seem to be there... just go for an older Live/Value.

Go tbird 1.1.. $240!!!!!
IBM HD's
Plextor CDRW

AND DON'T SKIMP ON YOUR CASE. A cheap case in the end will cause mucho trouble... well, it has for me anyway. Another vote for seph's choice PS.. as i have the same one.. very nice.

Enjoy building... the other idea is of course to buy an emachine and give me the leftover dough 🙂
 
Intel Pentium III 1ghz $500
Asus CUSL2 $150
Leadtek GeForce2 GTS $180
Adaptec 2940U2W $170
36.7gb Seagate 10k rpm Cheetah $575
Stylish Case 300w PS $110
Microsoft Natural Pro Keyboard $ 55
Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer $ 50
Mitsubishi 17-19" Diamondtron $350
Plextor 12/10/32 SCSI CD-RW $270
Teac floppy $ 20
256mb Crucial cas2 $187
Santa Cruz Soundcard $ 95
Boston Acoustics BA4800 Spkrs $200

This all totals about $2900, a little out of what you specified, but if you already eliminate the monitor that eliminated $300-400 right away, and if you already have a mouse/keyboard you're happy with there is another $100 eliminated and you're back within your budget. These are purely my personal BEST recommendations for your budget.

divinemartyr
 
Project Jukebox update:

AMD 760MP DDR Dual Socket-A Motherboard N/A
Thermaltake Blue Orb Chipset Cooler 10.00
2 x Thunderbird 800 Socket-A 239.90
2 x TaiSol CPU Cooler 35.98
2 x 256MB PC2100 DDR RAM 780.00
2 x IBM Deskstar 75GXP DTLA-307030 30GB 230.00
2 x Coolmaster 4002 Hard Drive Cooler 49.90
Promise Fasttrak ATA-100 RAID PCI 74.49
Ricoh MP9120A 8x/12x/10x/32x DVD/CDRW Combo Drive 251.00
Iomega Zip 250MB ATAPI Internal Drive 68.00
Panasonic LS-120 2x ATAPI Internal Drive 65.00
Gainward CARDEXpert GF2MX TwinView GS 139.00
2 x 19" Sansung Syncmaster Monitors 548.00
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz PCI Sound Card 79.99
Klipsch Promedia Speakers 249.99
Telex USB Digital Stereo Headset 62.58
3com 10/100MB PCI NIC 33.95
Microsoft Natural Pro Keyboard 50.00
Microsoft Intellimouse Optical 2.0 32.00
IOGear MiniView USB KVM 2-port Switch Kit 90.95
Antec Full Tower ATX case, 300+ W Power Supply 89.21
1 x Senfu SuperBox Storage Unit N/A

$3,179.94

Obviously, the DDR RAM at 256MB per DIMM and the two monitor tip the scale ($1300). I expect significant decreases once things are widely available on the market.

FWIW, I verify the prices about every 10 days. Therefore, I have URLs directly (as much as I can) to the vendor's product page. Hope I can publish it to the 'net soon.

-SUO
 
I just finished ordering all the components for my new rig today (processor was the last purchase). Everything came out to around $2,500 to $2,800. Check my sig for more details. (Project: DC-1). It too will also be used for graphics and modeling...
 
I am putting this together right now... the prices on the DDR-Chipset/Components are approxamated[sp?]
AMD 760-Based Mobo $150.00
AMD T-Bird Around 1.2G $200.00
256 MB PC 2100 DDR RAM $380.00
45GB ATA/100 7200RPM 75GXP $149.99
GeForce 2 GTS 32 MEG $211.41
SB Live! X-Gamer 5.1 $85.45
Kilpsht ProMedia 4100 $250.00
Antec 1030B 4-5 2X-3 4I-3 Blk $91.49
MS Intellemouse Explorer $49.95
Noname Ergo Keyboard $18.00
DVD- 115 16X/40X IDE Pioneer $113.39
12/10/32 Plextor $196.24
U.S. ROBOTICS 56K V90 PCI $69.95
SYNCMASTER 900NF FS 19" $379.88
Floppy Drive $30.00

Final price: $2,375.75

 
Here's my comp.... Ordered two weeks ago. Yet to receive mobo and case.

MSI K7T Pro-2A mobo $120 [monarch computers]
Thunderbird 1GHz $200 [icompz.com]
Heatsink $20 [anywhere, recommend super orb from nerdbyte.com]
2x256MB Kingston Cas2 PC100 (can do PC133) $180 from buy.com
Antec SX830 case $80 [onvia]
Maxtor 40GB ATA100 $130 [officedepot, I'd get the IBM 45GB 75GXP for $150 from buy.com now]
Floppy $20 [anywhere]
CDrom $20 [staples] (DVD from my old system)
ATI Radeon 32MB $132 [buy.com]
SB Live! 5.1 dolby digital $60 [buy.com, after coupon]
Linksys 10/100 NIC $15 [buy.com]
Cambridge Soundworks DTT2500 Dolby Digital speakers $150 [Amazon]

Total: ~$1100

Might go for a Sony G400 monitor soon... drool.
 
Make sure you don't spend "BIG" bux on something that's not going to take you about 18 months down the road.

Do's and Don'ts

Don't spend more than $250 on CPU or Video Card
Don't buy the latest.. (DDR, P4)
Don't buy IDE CD Drives!!
Don't buy anything ISA

Do Buy a GeForce2 GTS - $230ish (a video card that "will" last you at least 18 months)
Do Buy a BIG 7200 RPM IDE Drive.
Do Buy 256meg RAM Sticks... don't buy 128's
DO Buy CAS2@133mhz
Do buy cheap SCSI card (AVA-2903-$30) and SCSI CD drives.
Do buy a 19" or better Monitor
 
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